


oh atlas, why don't you lay your burdens down?

by AngelicSentinel



Series: The Darkest Timeline [3]
Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Doomsday Device, End of the World, F/M, Nursery Rhyme References, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 14:39:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11255013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelicSentinel/pseuds/AngelicSentinel
Summary: "We are running on very little time,” Saguru says.“Aren’t we always?” Shiho replies.





	oh atlas, why don't you lay your burdens down?

**Author's Note:**

> **OTP Prompt 8** : I found you with moonlight reflected in your eyes, on a balcony overlooking the sky. From [this prompt list](https://angelicsentinel.tumblr.com/post/177828528843/fifty-i-found-you-otp-prompts)

The white marble terrace gleams in the full moonlight, broken only by the figure in black as they cross the small gap between balconies with a jump, landing in front of the glass window. Vertical blinds are open, baring the room to the world.

She knocks on the glass. A broad-shouldered blond with brown half-moon eyes in a khaki trench coat, black tie, and black slacks stands abruptly from his position on the bed. Foolish. Even Shiho could have made that shot with a pistol from across the street. He slides open the door. “I found you,” Shiho says, walking in. “And quite easily, too.” He still hasn't learned. Shiho will teach him eventually.

“Are you my contact?” The blond asks Shiho.

“I would hardly announce my presence to you if I weren’t,” Shiho says, but she doesn’t take off her hood, not just yet. She is not one to play the spy, but she knows the value of caution. This fool trusts too easily.

“‘Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross,’” Shiho says. “‘See a fair lady upon a white horse. Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes; she shall have music wherever she goes.’”

He nods. “‘One for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for a birth. Five for silver, six for gold,’” here he pauses, fixing her with a look, then says, “‘Seven for secrets never to be told. Eight for heaven, nine for hell—’”

Shiho lowers her hood, says in unison with the man who must be Hakuba Saguru, “‘Ten for the Devil herself.’”

“Though she is hardly the devil.”

Nursery rhymes. How like Kudō-kun and his secret agent friends. Poking fun at her still, even after she finally took the antidote.

She runs her hands up his broad chest, across his shoulders, pauses at his cheek to give it an extra hard yank. It does not give, and is therefore not a mask. Shiho is gratified to hear him yelp in pain. “Cut the charm, Casanova. It’s irritating. We have a job to do.”

“We always mix business and pleasure,” he says. Saguru returns the touch, though his pinch is delicate and hardly has the strength to break a mask, should Shiho be wearing one. She is no flower, and any other of her kind would have used his patronising ways to their advantage. Very foolish. Once he determines she is herself, he says, “The schematics?”

“Here,” she says, pulling off the poster tube off her back. She knocks his sundry toiletries off the hotel table as he frowns, and spreads it out. “I still have a few contacts that remember my black wings. They were all too eager to give this to me.” In all actuality gibbering in fear at her service pistol, but eh. Semantics. She doesn’t do wetwork, but they don’t know that.

“This looks terribly like—”

“London Bridge? Yes. It’s the point of release. The satellites are still following the UFO in geosynchronous orbit over London. The device is thought to be solar powered.”

“Then we are running on very little time.”

“Aren’t we always?”

“Sunrise is in six hours. Why are we just hearing about this now?”

“You know Kudō. He keeps everything to himself.”

“‘Need Not to Know’ is the nature of our work, Shiho.”

Shiho gives him a flat stare to remind him just how asinine and unnecessary that reminder actually is. “If you forget, Saguru, I have been in the shadows far longer than you have.” Saguru inclines his head, suitably chastised. “In any case, the parameters of your mission have changed. You are to locate the device before it can be actuated.”

“And you are to disarm.”

“I am to neutralise the biochemical component, not disarm. That is beyond my purview.”

“It looks like the bridge is used as a conduit here,” he says, tapping the schematic. But why do they need so much power? It's—” Saguru stops speaking, stunned.

“Yes. Mōri is already leading a strike team to that effect in case something goes wrong on our end with Hattori-kun and Kid-san’s units as back-up.”

He runs his hands through his hair and starts pacing.

Shiho smirks. “Feeling pressure to perform?” she says, crossing her arms.

“You of all people should know that is most emphatically not a problem,” Saguru says, raking his eyes over her petite figure.

“Actions before words, Sa-gu-ru-kun,” Shiho says, sing-song.

“Quite.” He clears his throat, shifting. “It’s like something out of _Doctor Who_ ,” Saguru says.

“Timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly,” Shiho agrees, lifting one hand and waving it in a circle. “Nevertheless, the science is sound.”

“Says the biochemist.”

“Quantum Theory may not be my strength, but I know enough to follow along.” Her pocket chimes. “Ah. We are running out of time.”

“Ironic, considering.”

“Well, I am sure the device appreciates your disdain.” Shiho rolls up the schematic, placing it back in the tube and slinging it over her shoulder.

“What are you going to do when we arrive? Destroy it with your dry wit?” Saguru asks, gathering up his things.

“Yes. That is the plan,” Shiho says dryly. “How else would one destroy an eldritch device save by scathing words?”

“Indeed. May we live to see tomorrow morning,” he says, suddenly serious. He pockets his pistol, and then he is ready to go.

“If we do, you have a lot to learn about picking a place to rendezvous,” Shiho says. “Hotels are notoriously hard to secure.”

“Yes, but as a small guerilla force can escape easily with little effort.”

“A small bonus with very little benefit if your enemy has the advantage of numbers. Which they do,” she reminds him. “You must remember to think your deductions through, to stop not on the first conclusion your mind happens to draw, but on the correct one.”

“I—”

“You do remember how we met, yes?”

Saguru colours. Shiho thinks that makes her point quite clear, rather. “And you wonder why Hattori-kun, Sera-san, and Kudō have an advantage over you.”

His expression is pained, but Shiho has little patience with or desire to inflate a man’s ego. “I could have shot you before you were even aware of my presence,” she says noncommittally. They may be lovers, but that just means he should set higher standards for himself. “Now. Let’s go disarm this device before they decide to accelerate the process, yes?” Shiho says, opening the door to the balcony.

"Disarm? I thought you said that wasn't your purview."

"We will meet up with someone who can. You have an idea?"

Saguru seems to gather himself, and he nods. “Yes. I believe I have already deduced the location.”

“Believe.” So he can learn after all. Good. He wouldn’t be worthy of her otherwise.

“Yes, well. I am confident it was not a hasty deduction, but it must be done with the utmost care, as you say,”

They step out onto the white balcony, bright stars above them eclipsed by the light of the city. Even so, Shiho can see the moonlight reflected in his eyes, and she leans against him.

For a moment, just for a moment, they are any couple in the city, with no care in the world, without the knowledge that the world may end tomorrow. Shiho leans back against Saguru, and he wraps his arms around her and holds her tightly as she relaxes into his chest.

For a moment.

Then she pulls the grappling hook from the pouch at her waist and rappels down the balcony, Saguru following shortly after.

With a few twists of her wrists, she pulls the hook down and coils it back up, placing it back into the pouch. Waste not want not, and they are already short on supplies.

“Let’s go,” she says crisply.

With a nod, Saguru follows.


End file.
